A slew of announcements from iRacing on Wednesday (25th January) included the news that a popular BMW-sponsored community series that anyone can get in on, but only the top pairs of drivers will walk away with their share of more than $45,000 in this year’s purse.
Formely the BMW SIM GT Cup, the newly minted BMW M SIM Cup will be a 10-race iRacing series which starts on 5th February (at Daytona Road Course) and ends on 19th November (at Suzuka Circuit) and features both Multiclass racing (for the first time) and Team Racing (with two drivers per team entry).
The two classes that will be included in the nearly-year-long series are the new GTP class, featuring the BMW M Hybrid V8, and the GT3 class which hosts the BMW M4 GT3. Races will last for two hours and teams will need to split the driving duties among two drivers in each event.
The schedule for the 2023 season is as follows:
- 5 Feb: Daytona International Speedway
- 19 Mar: Sebring International Raceway
- 23 Apr: Road America
- 7 May: Nurburgring Grand-Prix-Strecke
- 4 Jun: Watkins Glen International
- 2 Jul: Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps
- 20 Aug: Fuji Speedway
- 17 Oct: Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta
- 5 Nov: To be determined
- 19 Nov: Suzuka International Racing Course
As for the prize pool breakdown, each class podium splits $1,750 per race, while the top 10 finishers per class (plus the driver who posts the fastest lap if they finish in the top 10) will receive BMW M SIM Cup points towards the end-of-season prize pool.
An additional $6,150 per class is on the line for the top 12 points finishers in both classes at the end of the season, with the champions taking home $1,500 apiece.
Last year, the final was a Team Redline domination, taking home the top four finishing positions and Maximilian Benecke winning.
SOURCE: iRacing